Breadcrumbs
As I've mentioned a couple of times before1, I'm slowly setting up a system to organize my stuff, mostly digital but also analog. I don't want to move work to the background, so I'm not exactly doing so steadily; today, since it's Sunday, I've decided to go all in and tackle my external hard disk (where most of this stuff lives in a partially organized way).
There's another reason why I'm slow: I'm afraid. I might not be the most tidy person on Earth, but I do take care of what I do and tend to at least keep some stuff saved in the same place. All of the music sheets I've written since 2015 or so is carefully catalogued in folders by series, all the games I've made since 20122 (yes, even that very first draft of my first visual novel that's been rewritten twice before release 10 years later) still have their source. Half-written AUs from back then which have no other place than my own file system, or that story I decided to never publish because I don't feel like coming up with a decent continuation (although I'd probably scrap it and rewrite it). Unfinished music sheets for things that I'm not sure have a home now.
Here's a fun trivia: the main theme from a game I made in 2020 — the game that made me realize I could actually finish a project for once — is actually a rearrangement of a song I never finished writing because it was too autobiographical and too painful to share; things can actually have a second or third life, I do it all the time. But I don't think I was afraid of that piece, more like pensive about what to do with it.
The thing is that I don't know where I'm at, and I don't know what to archive — heck, I don't know why I do it. About 8 years ago, when I was still in the middle of the second draft of the previously mentioned visual novel, at some point I thought about putting all the information I had for it in order, so that when I kicked the bucket someone else could finish it in my stead. Of course that was stupid: no one else is going to finish your projects for you. Not even when you're dead, especially not when you're dead. I guess a part of me really hates leaving stuff unfinished, so I just keep on working until it's not. Can't trust anyone else with that.
It probably sounds stupid, being scared of sorting things, but that's what happens when memories have such a power on you: empowering in the good times, oppressive in the bad ones. One moment lives on in your mind and makes you feel as light as a feather, another one is a boulder on your heart, constantly weighing you down. I always find very alienating how some sentences someone said once keep coming back to me, while they completely forgot about it, or straight up deny having said them. It's also mortifying when the opposite happens: I don't want to be someone else's curse.
It seems lately I have quite some trouble focusing on the feathers, while I have boulders to spare; but I don't want to erase what's painful just because it's the easiest choice. I used to do that a long time ago, and I don't like being that kind of person. I've also been subjected to way too many damnatio memoriae than I can handle3, so that's a practice I despise from the bottom of my heart.
There must be a place for everything, even for things that hurt like crazy. As there are probably things that can be safely let go to leave space for something else, such as things that are simply not yours. Yeah I'm not going to play Lunar anytime soon, I can delete the ISO from my files.
There must be a place for me that's not in the Trash Bin.